Aldnoah.Zero Episode 2 Discussion

Kaioshin_Sama said:




That one I'll give the show a pass on because realistically in her disguise and with the Martians in a Kill Em' All blood frenzy of evil and "Earthling Rat Scum" killing coupled with general communications systems being down in the area there's really not much point in her contacting them.

Kaioshin_Sama said:
[spoiler]The music in this show is wretchedly bad as I sadly expected from Post Unicorn Sawano. Sorry do not go for the angsty bleepy bloopy vocal singing tracks in my mecha anime combat. What the fuck happened to Sawano man? He was so good with Unicorn but has just been absolutely awful lately and none of his soundtracks seem to fit anything he works on. Terrible shame.

Anyway it's funny cause before the season started I would have figured that this show would be the more real robot one and Argevollen would be the kind of super show, but it's actually the other way around as the Earthlings in bizarrely confident fashion tackle their conquering Martian overlords with what are basically little tiny pea shooters. I guess they're going for the image of "despair" and just being no match for the Martian with their death rays and death drill drop castles, but it's a little overblown. And then you have to have the characters basically saying as much with their "like unto an insect" dialogue after getting curb stomped by their emotionless martian conquerors and their superiority. Like it's okay Gen, we get it, we just saw what happened lol. Just really ham-fisted but kind of expectedly so.

There's also lots of expository dialogue again like in the first episode and just something that feels unnaturely wooden about it all....everything really, but then when I look at who the head writer is I guess it's not terribly surprising. The combat sequences aren't particularly exciting either really. It's like the show is basically trying to be all like, "Look everyone see! There's a war going on people are dying and it's bad and Earth is getting it's ass kicked" and I'm like I can see that, how about having somebody show some emotion and build the show on that level as well instead of just having everyone comment on what I'm seeing without any real analysis like a poorly written sports manga.

And seriously what the fuck is up with the main character? He doesn't evacuate with everyone else and is so non-chalant when talking to his sister like "Oh yeah I suppose I could have done that" when she's clearly worried about him. She's like one of the few characters in this episode that seems to show any sort of emotion and direct concern over what is happening so she'll probably die since Gen Urobuchi hates non-robotic and nihilistic characters. MC-kun probably won't ever care the way the dialogue is written and ADR direction is handled and probably just be all like "Oh I suppose nee-san died......" and just walk off to continue his daily routine.

The scene with him and the Princess in disguise (surprise....she's alive and it was a double) is really weird too. Again both are just so detached and oddly emotionless and this happens when she CQC's him for some reason which of course he doesn't even seem to react too.

I honestly found myself getting kind of bored oddly enough by the halfway point just with every characters interaction being cold emotionless expository dialogue and can't really say I felt much when MC-Kun's friend died either nor the scene where the super evil Martian pilot offed his own men from the terrorist group because.......????? Too show how diabolically evil he was, because the sneering grin and utter delight in just stomping all over the "Earthling Scum" didn't illustrate that enough. He also for whatever reason leaves the one girl alive (cause she's cute I guess) and then decides he has to torment and chase her a bit too FURTHER drive him his super villainy. Cool stuff Gen. There's a really Saturday Morning Cartoon villain quality to the Martian pilots at this point that is pretty unwelcome in a show that claims to be aiming for gritty realism and the Gundam standard of depiction of war and conflict in sci-fi anime There's also just something off about this show...it's like it wants to prove to everyone so badly that it's a sci-fi mecha war anime and just how gritty it is and how much suffering and despair is going on so it makes everything kind of lifeless and matter of fact and has characters constantly telling us how fucked everyone on Earth is. The second half was kind of a rehash of the rather dull first half too with more of the Martians just saying how much they hate the Earthling scum and curb stomping them and the Earthlings marveling at how fucked they are.

It was actually pretty dull as a second episode followup to what was a pretty decent premiere and I can only hope the dialogue and eventfulness of the show gets better once Gen Urobuchi is done writing the scripts cause if this is what we're going to get out of him it's not going to be a very interesting watch. A conflict isn't interesting if it's just constant depictions of the antagonists being assholes in their OP mech so you can hate them more easily with the protagonists getting curb stomped and the main character not even caring about anything so you can't be concerned at their plight. I mean in terms of portrayal, minus the emotionless part this is the sort of thing that ran it's course back in the 70's with shows like Voltes V.

Like I don't know show, try being more like Gundam since that's what it seems you are going for and instead of just over killing it to drive the narrative of "war is bad" home and making every Earth character a complete stereotype maybe take a page from some of it's better subtleties and human drama. Like I know Urobuchi loves to work by writing characters as concepts rather than people, but if this keeps up what they are going for is not going to work I am afraid to say because it just lacks any emotional weight or resonance and feels cold and artificial. It's a 2.5/5 for me. Next time with more feeling please and less trying to appeal to despair junkies and people that just want to see chaos and conflict without any apparent sense of purpose.

Uber_Dewber said:
[/spoiler] Blah blah blah. Quit judging on two episodes, lol.

orangpelupa said:


for me, that scene feel deliberately "bad" because there is other story behind it. Just as you said, she is the PRINCESS.

for example, she deilberately faked her death and only a few people she personally trust know her plan. Although i still dont get why she did not have any comm device with her. it is weird.

heck, even the earthlings have cellphones.

Kaioshin_Sama said:


Why can't I have some misgivings about this episode again? I am judging based off of the first two episodes and only the two episodes, they just have a lot of pretty obvious problems. It can still improve later but right now it's been kind of disappointing cause every cliche thing I could have predicted has come to pass and what I was worried about in this show just being a mass of ham fistedly evil antagonists and emotionless protagonists is starting to look more and more like a reality.

WhiteWing13 said:


I think it would acutlaly be a really good twist and something Urobutcher would be willing to do if it turned out she was letting the war happen for some greater purpose. Perhaps she thinks that she can unite mankind and the Vers against the martians who arranged her assassination, but to do that the war needs to rage on for a bit before she intervenes.

WhiteWing13 said:


But that's the thing! This is Urobutcher we're talking about! THe plan will backfire and the earthlings will still want war with the remaining martians because they took like no losses.

DejWoSWK said:


And they will want to attack Mars to "punish" the other Martians for what the Knights in orbital fortresses committed? Could be and it doesn't sound bad. If it will be the case,hopefully,it will be better executed.